Nov.] DISTRESSING SITUATION— DEATH OF GEERY. 345 



own was cold and clammy; "it is of no use — my life-lines are 

 stranded — God bless you, my dear sir — you are the sailor's friend — a 

 father to those under your command — Heaven will bless you." I told 

 him I hoped he felt resigned to the will of Providence, and was pre- 

 pared for the change which he thought so nearly awaited him. He 

 answered that he believed he was ; and then folded his hands, and 

 raising his eyes aloft, was for some time engaged in silent prayer. At 

 the same time I breathed a fervent petition to Heaven, that I might not 

 be thus deprived of this my chief dependence, my able counsellor and 

 well tried friend, under my present troubles and difficulties. 



During all this time our exertions in attempting to restore the circu- 

 lation of blood in his limbs were not relaxed, but continued with in- 

 creased ardour ; by continual friction, and bathing with hot vinegar, 

 these exertions were at length rewarded with success ; when, to our 

 unspeakable joy, we once more felt his beating pulse, which began to 

 tell with accelerating force, and the blood at length resumed its usual 

 eourse through his limbs. Before night we took him below, and en- 

 tertained great hopes of his final recovery. 



My wife was at this time so low that I dared not indulge the hope 

 of her ever being restored to health, or of even surviving another revo- 

 lution of twenty-four hours. She still retained her senses, however; 

 and several times a day would send her brother forward, with sweet- 

 meats, jellies, cakes, and other little delicacies, for the sick sailors in 

 the forecastle ; saying, with a voice enfeebled by disease and pain, 

 " Poor men ! how much they must suffer for the want of some little 

 thing that is palatable and nourishing." Although she could not turn 

 herself in the bed, she would give directions to her brother how to make 

 wine sangaree and lemonade, and send him forward with it, at least a 

 dozen times a day, to the sick seamen, with orders to them if they 

 wanted it more frequently to send their shipmates aft, and they should 

 have it. 



November 1st. — On Sunday, the 1st of November, the fever still 

 raged with unrelenting severity. Several of the crew appeared to be 

 dying; but were revived by blisters, friction, and bathing with hot 

 vinegar. Mr. Scott, the third officer, had again become worse, so 

 that his tongue had turned black, and his pulse had nearly ceased to 

 beat for more than two hours. But by a very large blister on the pit 

 of his stomach, and frequent bathings with vinegar, with hot applica- 

 tions constantly at his feet, we once more raised his pulse, and restored 

 the circulation of the blood in his limbs. 



November 2d. — This mode of treatment, however, was not always 

 to be successful. On the following day, which was Monday, the 2d 

 of November, I was called to witness the closing scene of life's little 

 drama in the person of Mr. Samuel Geery, son of James Geery, Esq., 

 merchant, in the city of New- York, at the early and promising age of 

 twenty-two. This was a young man who promised to become a first- 

 rate navigator, having every necessary qualification for rising to the 

 head of the profession ; add to this, for his private virtues I loved him 

 like a younger brother. The reader will easily conceive that it was 



